


Turning Back the Setting Sun to Reclaim a Life Just Begun

by TigressJade



Series: Spangled Stars and Altered Stripes AU's [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, BAMF Peggy Carter, BAMF Steve Rogers, Beginning of the Cold War, Bucky Barnes Might Be a War Bride, Cannon Divergence - Captain America: The First Avenger, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Do-Over, Fix-It, M/M, Mind Gem (Marvel), Peggy Carter is One Tough Lady, Post War Germany, Post-War, Steve is a Big Damn Hero, The Author Regrets Nothing, The End of WWII, The Howling Commados are Back, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, True Love's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 20:24:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4235400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigressJade/pseuds/TigressJade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Mind Gem takes notice of a dying Steve Rogers and offers him an opportunity to return to the life he left behind just before the end of the war in exchange for gambling his soul in a supernatural test of worth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turning Back the Setting Sun to Reclaim a Life Just Begun

**Author's Note:**

> This goes AU right in the middle of Age of Ultron. In this universe Ultron somehow gets the opportunity to stab Steve and does so while having Loki's staff in it's possession. The staff takes notice of a dying Steve and, after sensing his greatest desire, makes a deal with him.

 

                                     

 

  

 

Captain America was dying, lying there before an embodiment of Ultron, an electronic doppelganger who now had Loki’s staff gripped firmly in its metallic grip.

He wanted to crawl, wanted to stand up and help his team finish the fight, but his body was betraying him at every turn.

The shield had been shattered, but that didn’t matter as long…as long as he could still fight.

Then time passed, precious minutes bleeding by, as whatever machine had stabbed him continued to do its best to tear him apart, and he felt the remnants of his strength fade out of him.

His final thoughts weren’t for his team though, they were for Bucky. Bucky, who was still out there trying to work through whatever Hydra mind control he’d been subject to for the last few decades. Steve felt the guilt that had been his constant companion since 1945.

He barely noticed the staff glow even more ethereally as the machine took one final jab straight through his heart.

Then suddenly light exploded behind Steve’s eyelids as he was encased in an eerie blue light.

**_You have fought well, though not well enough, man of blue._ **

_Who are you?_

**_I am the Mind. I am thought, I am awareness. I am quantifiable, yet unquantifiable. I am lost, yet gained._ **

_I don’t understand. Why…am I here? I’m dead aren’t I?_

**_You would be, could ssstill be, if I choose._ **

_Then why haven’t you?_

**_You moved the hammer, shifted it before your consciousness of it got the better of you._ **

**_You are worthy._ **

**_I will give you this. A bargain._ **

_I didn’t…fine maybe a little, but it didn’t budge. I’m not._

**_You are. You saw the Asguardian’s fear at that movement and you stopped._ **

**_Was it out of fear for him, for his jest about becoming Allfather?_ **

_I don’t deserve to be king of any place._

**_You would not have become the Allfather just for lifting Mjolnir, man of blue. Never fear for that._ **

_Er. Thanks, I guess._

**_A strange trifle you have, man of blue. But let us consider the bargain now. I can give you what you value most._ **

**_Ah, but only you will suffer. He will be free._ **

**_He will die elsewise. At your teammates hands no less. With you gone, there will be none to tame him, to shield him._ **

_You’d swear on that? Bucky, he would-would live? Be safe? He has to be free of Hydra. Forever._

**_Tricky that is, man of blue, but not impossible. Work there is to be done. He will be free of them, so long as you do as you are told to._ **

_How?_

**_You will be granted breath. Life. Your mind will be sent will be returned to a time before the ice. But in turn you must find him in one year’s time and you must give to him what has been bestowed on you._ **

_Then Bucky will-it’ll be over then?_

**_Since you are giving all to what you value most, you must be shown that in return. Breathe of the breath of life. If you are not of equal value, of breath, in return, then you will be returned to us and to the Aether._ **

_So it’s a one-way trip. I-I’ll do it. For Bucky. If I can do this, make a difference, then that’s all that matters now. I can’t even help my team now, after…_

**_It is sealed then. Breathe now, or aether will drown your lungs and pull you back to your death._ **

He breathed in, then out, and felt the world splinter beneath him.

The transfer was painful, excruciating even as Steve felt his insides stretched out and pulled into endless stream of scorching lights that seared him all the way to his core.

Then there was stillness, silence, peace, before another torrent that ripped him straight through what must have been hell, because Steve was sure that was what hell must feel like. He felt like he was falling until everything stopped leaving him with a feeling of being frayed at the edges, like he was trying to fit himself to squeeze through an opening that was too big for him. Everything tightened for several minutes, or what seemed like it, and his soul seemed to meld itself into that opening. He began to feel smaller, more fitted as the pain started to lessen.

Then he opened his eyes to find the fading remains of the afternoon light glinting off window of the cockpit.

Steve took a deep breath, tested the dashboard surface at his fingertips, and found that he was truly back, back where he’d made his final choice before his descent into the ice.

“Come in! This is Captain Rogers” Steve radios in to the Hydra base. He wants, needs this to be true.

If well and truly back in 1945, he’ll get what the voice promised: a second chance at saving Bucky and stopping Hydra once and for all. Though he isn’t all that optimistic about there not being other cells that even Zola isn’t in contact with.

“Captain Rogers, tell us your loc-” Morita starts to answer before he is cut off by Peggy Carter.

“Steve, is that you? Are you alright?” Peggy wants to know.

“Peggy!” Steve practically shouts, relieved that he may actually be exactly where he wants to be. He looks down though and nearly panics for a second time in reaction to seeing the New York City blaring on the target screen as the first drop site. “I need help this plane is set to target every major city in the world. I need to find a way to get back to base and take it down…”

The reception goes a bit fuzzy, but the radio recovers the signal within minutes.

“Steve? Steve! Just give us your coordinates, I’ll get Howard. He’ll-”

Steve let out another breath.

“Alright, Peggy. I’ll tell you where I am.”

He rattled off the coordinates on the grid to her and heard Colonel Phillips bark an order before, presumably, leaving the room.

“Peggy?”

“Steve.”

“Just- promise me something.”

“What is it?”

“I-Schmidt said something to me” Steve thanked god that she couldn’t see his face right now, because it would be immediately evident to her that he was lying. “It’s about Bucky… about what Zola did to him. The train was part of something bigger. Hydra has more heads than we thought it did.”

“Steve what’re you-” he could hear her sigh over the radio, “the Colonel is bringing Howard now. Just sit tight and keep it steady.”

“Peggy, you have to promise me that if I don’t get through this, you’ll look for him. You have to find Bucky. Zola wanted him back and he was willing to do anything to get him!”

“Cap? Cap! This is Stark. Tell me what your dashboard looks like?”

After countless back and forth split second directions, Howard had explained how to turn the plan and Steve thanked god as the controls had the desired effect.

“Is it still armed?”

“Yes, there’s four live ones strapped underneath.”

“Then pull the release levers, but make damn sure you’re over water when you do it, Rogers!”

“Alright Stark, what’s next step?”

Eventually, Howard manages to guide Steve as close to the Hydra base as possible. He nearly kills himself by crashing the plane onto the now cleared landing strip, but his reflexes serve him well and he uses his shield to break through a window and jump before it burns up on impact.

In the documents they find, Bucky is only mentioned in Zola’s past experiments dating back to his original capture along with the other Commandos as part of the 107th division.

 

* * *

 

That night Steve dreamed that Zola had killed Bucky on the table and frozen Steve in the cryto chamber while he looked on helplessly.

 

* * *

 

“You really think Barnes is still out there?” Morita wanted to know when he caught Steve alone just as they were heading back to camp.

“Yeah. I do” Steve answered as honestly as he could. “Something Zola said lined up with what Schmidt said about having other weapons at their disposal. A new type of army.”

“You’re not wrong, Cap” Morita confided. “I’ve read some of those reports. Zola seemed to think pretty highly of himself despite being a snitch. If he had another card up his sleeve that Schmidt didn’t know about, it would make a whole lot more sense.”

“Thanks Jim. Do the guys-?”

“They’re waiting until we get the go ahead for a mission, but yeah, we want to believe that Barnes is alive as much as you do. We’ve all seen exactly what Hydra’s capable of…the rest of the SSR didn’t have the pleasure of keeping Zola’s company in the camp like we did” Morita replied. “That bastard had a fucking creepy obsession with trying new things on our Sergeant during the time we were in there.”

“Is he still getting amnesty?” Steve asked, relieved that his men at least, supported him on this.

“Dunno for sure, but it looks that way” Morita admitted. “Falsworth thinks they’ll make him work in a government lab somewhere.”

“Then they’re fools if they think they can trust him with classified information.”

“Couldn’t’ve said it better myself” Morita muttered as they went to join the others.

 

* * *

 

The European theatre saw a few more battles before hostilities ended and Hitler’s successor in Berlin signed an order of surrender.

The SSR was called in as ground support, as well as to decode and catalog intel.

Falsworth and Dugan were ordered to perform interrogations on mid-level officers with connections to Hydra. While, Gabe and Morita worked with Peggy and her agents to de-classify and decode the files left behind in Berlin.

Dernier was currently acting as a liaison between French POW’s and American troops as nearby camps had begun being liberated.

 

* * *

 

Once Steve had a dream that Bucky, as the Winter Soldier, saved Tony, only for Tony to turn around and shoot him for supposedly killing Howard and his wife.

 

* * *

 

“Steve, you’re starting to worry us. Maybe it’s time you let this go. Let Barnes’ memory be honored properly back home.” Peggy Carter said as they reviewed collected research notes.

Steve shook his head.

“I can’t Peggy, I know Zola gave him some version of the serum and that it helped him survive the fall” he insisted, his voice sounding strained.

“You want there to be a way for him to have survived it, but we may have to resign ourselves to the fact that there’s no coming back for him this time. I’m sorry Steve.” Peggy replied, her expression was one of regret.

Her voice softened as she said, “We have no evidence supporting the fact that Zola has had any contact with James outside of their initial time together.”

“Is he being watched then?”

Peggy nodded

“There has to be something…”

“I’m so sorry Steve.”

Steve gritted his teeth and waited. He hoped Falsworth and Dugan would have luck digging up information during their time off-base in Berlin.

His time was getting shorter and he had to find Bucky or the deal was all for nothing.

 

* * *

 

Steve frequently dreamed that the voice was already calling him back, telling him that he was too late and that back in 2014, Bucky would now be put down by the new Shield as a security risk.

 

* * *

 

It was a cold night when Peggy Carter walked into Steve’s tent in the dark and slapped a thin file down in front of him.

“Arnim Zola is being transferred into the custody of Russian intelligence. They want to interrogate him for war crimes against Russian military personnel” she stated, face unreadable.

“But you don’t believe that” Steve replied.

“Not one bloody bit of it” Peggy assured him. “This fits too well with what you described. I did some digging on my own and found out that he’s being taken to a clinic turned research facility in East Berlin.”

Steve took in a shaking breath.

“What’s the plan?”

“I’ve managed to convince the Colonel that he’s a security risk and had him tailed” she revealed. “The specifics are still unclear, but the facility itself is using a significant amount of power from the neighborhood nearby. So much that the lights have been dimming every night on a consistent basis at unexplained intervals.”

“So they’ve been using unusual amounts of electricity.”

“Simply put, yes. I’m beginning to see what you meant about the information we found being less than reliable” Peggy admitted. “It would seem Hydra had the foresight not to centralize all of their records.”

“That’s one way to stop the SSR from cutting off every one of its heads.”

 

* * *

 

One of Steve’s reoccurring nightmares involved Zola having already shipped Bucky to Moscow with two metal limbs attached now instead of one, screaming in pain as blood streamed out of both shoulders.

 

* * *

 

“Rogers, you’re running point on this. You take Carter with you. I want no mistakes. War’s over and I’m certainly not going to start a new one with the goddamn Communists” Phillips didn’t even take a breath in between issuing orders and listing new directives. “You get in and get out clean, even if you have to carry whatever prisoners you find.”

“Yes sir.”

“Carter, I want whatever intel you can get your hands detailing any Hydra based experiments they had him running. Is that clear?”

“Very, Colonel.”

 

* * *

 

Steve’s nightmares were a bit less frequent that night. He only dreamed about Bucky being crushed by Mjolnir once.

 

* * *

 

“You didn’t tell him about Bucky.”

Peggy shook her head.

“I thought it best to wait and let the evidence speak for itself. It may very well keep us all from being court-martialed if this all goes ary.”

“I understand. As long as it gets us to where Bucky is sooner.”

“And Steve?”

“Ma’am?”

“Make sure you tell Barnes the truth when this is all over.”

“About Zol-”

“No, I mean about how you really feel about him. We all know about it, the Commandos and I. I think even Phillips suspected something and just overlooked it in favor of getting his men out alive.”

“You-you _knew_ ” Steve gulped, feeling the air catching in his throat. “I-I don’t know how to-I wasn’t trying to lead you on, Peggy. I swear.”

Peggy fixed him with a radiant smile with a sad tinge to it.

“I do just fine on my own, Steve. You’re a good friend and I couldn’t have asked for better. I did what I did, because while I do care about you, I didn’t want others to notice and cause you to suffer for how you felt” she told him. “I’ve seen more than my fair share of tragedies, here and back home. There are only so many times I can watch something come to a bad end before I have to step in and stop it myself.”

“Peggy, I had no idea. Who-”

“My uncle. He’s dead now. Queen and country weren’t all that kind despite his loyalty to them” Peggy stated, her tone was clipped with iron that wasn’t meant for Steve. “My family changed their views after that. It’s part of the reason my father decided it was alright for a girl to learn how to use a gun and take part in the war effort. I haven’t taken any clout from anyone sense.”

“Except Howard.”

“Watch yourself, Rogers. I may be a romantic, but I can still shoot you for being an idiot.”

“You’re all heart, Peggy” Steve said with a teasing smile, before diving for cover behind his shield as she took aim.

 

* * *

 

They take out the security guards first with tranquilizers and keep them under guard while Agent Carter and Captain America lead the rest of the team, some of Steve’s own team is included in there, through the facility. Between the two of the, they’d studied all of the old blueprints secured by American and British intelligence in Berlin after the invasion. They knew where Bucky was likely to be, if he was there at all.

Shots were fired from rooms up above and some stray bullets hit the scientists in one of the larger rooms. Others were armed and their shots pinged against Steve’s shield as he used to cover for his team. Dugan and Falsworth were in the forefront, giving Gabe and Dernier a chance to counter the spray artillery that came whizzing. While Peggy’s agents worked toward clearing the staircases.

Eventually they managed to disable the personnel in the two ground floors using tranquilizers and brute force. They meticulously worked their way through the third floor in pairs. Steve and Gabe had just cleared two labs, but a peek inside the third appeared to have a several occupants.

Armed occupants. Already alerted to the presence of intruders.

Steve threw his shield as they started to fire, while Gabe got off a few shots and soon the scientist lay bloodied and slumped on the floor. There was a door that led off the lab into what looked like a slightly medium sized room.

“I’m going to check it, cover me” Steve whispered.

“Affirmative, Cap. Just let me know if you need backup.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, _Captain_. Were I to pull this switch, the good Sergeant might-” said a familiar voice as Steve entered the room. The Hydra scientist had a gun in his right hand that aimed at Steve, while his left was positioned directly near something a precarious looking switch. “If you were to move a muscle, Sergeant Barnes will feel several thousand volts coursing through his entire body. That could do a lot of damage, don’t you think?”

Steve let out a breath sharply and thought about his options. He knew that if he moved quickly he could outmaneuver the smaller man and get between him and Bucky. So Steve shifted the gun in his hand and sent bullet heading straight for Zola’s upper left arm. The he tossed the shield straight into the man’s stomach, knocking him down.

Zola dropped like stone, gripping a tube in his stubby fingers on the way down and jostling one of the cords attached to Bucky. Steve quickly dove for it and made it too late, as Zola’s hands took the cord along with them, pulling it out of the wall.

And Bucky. Bucky stopped breathing. Alarm started going off all around him.

“Jones?”

“Cap?”

“Bucky’s in here, get help quick!” Steve yelled back scrambled for a way to fix it before Bucky slipped away. He tried to replace the cord into the wall, but to no avail.

His heart was pounding, and he couldn’t, couldn’t…then he remembered what the voice had told him to do.

_You must give to him what has been bestowed on you._

He took in a deep breath, lowered his head so that his mouth was just over Bucky’s, pressed their mouths together and breathed once, twice, three times.

Steve felt Bucky’s chest ride and fall under his hand as he just breathed for him. Then he felt Bucky’s mouth move and quickly backed away.

Bucky blinked blearily up at him, moving his hands wide, shifting, grabbing for something. Steve moved back into Bucky’s line of vision and carefully held left one in his own, keeping his friend from reacting with his now tentatively dangerous limb.

“St-eve?”

“Yeah, it’s me, Buck. Steve. I’m here to get you out” Steve said calmly, comfortingly, so he didn’t startle Bucky into some type of forced reaction.

“Steve? Steve! You have t’ go…can’t let ‘m find ya…” Bucky croaked, his voice warn from use.

From screaming, Steve’s mind supplied.

“Shhh…it’s safe now, Bucky. We got them, so they can’t hurt you anymore.”

Steve watched as Bucky’s body healed itself of minor incisions, and waited for the team to converge in the room where he now held Bucky, amidst the bleeding bodies of Hydra scientists. Zola lay there on the floor, staring blankly through those eerie circular lenses. It made the hair stand up on the back of Steve’s neck, how close they’d come to re-programming the humanity out of Bucky once more and dragging him through decades worth of torture.

His eyes surveyed the room, landing on a human-sized capsule that must have been a cryto chamber, and felt rage course through him. He’d have to make sure it was destroyed the first opportunity he got and hope the Russians hadn’t already duplicated the technology.

 _They were going to lock Bucky in that-that thing!_ Steve thought, lungs wanting to scream with every ounce of him.

Eventually several medically trained SSR agents were able to safely detach Bucky from the multiple tubes and wires on the surgical table he’d been lying on. The team exited the building, with Peggy’s agents covering them from behind and the Commandos, led by Steve, who was holding Bucky close in his arms, climbed into the pre-dispatched military vehicles and extracted themselves from the scene.

 

* * *

 

“You’re pretty tough, Sarge. Going to join the boxing circuit with that gauntlet you’ve got there?” Dugan dared to ask when they visited Bucky in the hospital that had been set up for American soldiers in central West Berlin.

“Sure, why don’t I test my left hook against your ugly mug, Dum Dum” came Bucky’s retort from amidst a pile of blankets.

“Probably bloody improve it” Falsworth says sardonically, and Bucky automatically knows he lost to Dugan at cards again.

The military had been getting donations from overseas for many of their military hospitals, so supplies were becoming more prevalent as the factories as home started manufacturing more linens to keep up with the Red Cross’ demands. Bucky, however, had been lucky enough that his family and the Commandos had splurged on coverings to keep him from getting cold and catching pneumonia, because of the arm. Though Howard had eventually promised to devise a skin covering for it that would insulate it better and keep the cold from seeping into Bucky’s shoulder joints.

“If you can ever move under that” Gabe joked.

“Let’s let him rest a bit, fellas” Steve suggested ushering them out of the room. “’Sides, I owe Morita a cup of coffee.”

“Lead the way, Captain.”

Steve turned back as the others walked out of the room and sent Bucky a playful salute. Bucky returned it with an accompanying hand motion just above his blanket pile.

 

* * *

 

The night after Bucky was released from the hospital, Steve’s screaming in his sleep from a dream where Zola isn’t quite dead and manages to flip the switch that fries Bucky’s brain. Bucky isn’t dead, but the electricity works the same as a wipe and he doesn’t remember Steve or anyone, and starts strangling anyone who comes close with the metal arm.

They restrain him, but Steve knows, knows that he hadn’t really saved Bucky, won’t be able to see him be himself, because the deadline on Steve’s soul will pass long before the SSR doctors get Bucky to remember anything.

The Aether takes him without a fight, because Steve is broken, frozen inside before it even comes to collect on the deal.

 

* * *

 

“Steve! Steve, you’ve gotta wake the hell up…it’s just a dream” Buck alternates between speaking soft comfort to trying hard to jostle Steve awake. Several seconds later Steve’s isn’t even moderately conscious, still dead to the world.

Bucky knew that meant he hadn’t been sleeping well. The serum caused him to need less sleep, but that didn’t mean he could do without it completely for very long.

“Hafta save Bucky…”

“You did that, pal. I’m already here” Bucky says, beckoning his friend to wake up.

“Made a deal with…had to save…couldn’t let…Winter Soldier…”

Bucky eyed him with even more concern and pulled Steve closer to him, thanking god that Phillips had given Steve his own quarters. After recovering in the hospital Bucky had moved in, because Steve was now considered his caretaker since they’d both listed one another as their next-of-kin, with permission to make medical decisions if needed, on their enlistment forms.

He listened attentively as Steve continued to talk in his sleep.

“Bucky’s stopped…breathing…gotta breathe...I’ll breathe for him…Gabe!...Gabe get medical!”

Bucky’s breath did stop in that moment as he realized what else Steve must have done to save him. Blushed slightly, a little flustered, even though he knew, he knew dammit that CPR was a medically certified technique. He felt kind of ashamed for having attributed such a thing to kissing Steve, even in his mind, but he couldn’t help it. Steve was Steve, any version of him had proved to be exactly what drew Bucky in, held him fast in a way that no one else could ever hope to.

“Always wanted to…do that…but not…like _this_ …”

Bucky blinked. He sure he must have misheard that, because Steve couldn’t possibly...

“Bucky…m’sorry…wanted to tell you…promised Peggy that…I would…tell you…” Steve mumbles before finally blessedly quiet.

Bucky hugs him closer, curls the blankets around them in a warm bundle. Then he whispers into Steve’s ear, “We’re going to talk about this in the morning. Whether you want to or not. Something’s still bothering you, punk, and its got me worried ‘bout ya.”

Steve starts talking in his sleep again an hour later, this time he mentions people Bucky has never heard of.

“What the hell have you gone and gotten yourself into this time, Steve?” Bucky asks, well aware that still won’t be able to wake the idiot up tonight. Steve’s completely out of it for now after what Bucky assumes was probably days on end of worrying about Bucky after they broke him out of a Hydra facility. Again.

 

* * *

 

Bucky’s still recovering from everything that’s happened to him over the last couple of weeks, and dealing with the tests Howard insisted on putting his arm through after claiming he could replace the one Hydra had given him with a new one. So it takes him several days before he can finally focus, can finally get up the courage to confront Steve about his sleep-talking.

It’s worrying that Steve seems unaware of what happens to him at night, though Bucky’s started to notice the bags under his eyes. Steve’s started looking a bit thinner as well, which shouldn’t be possible given how much he eats to keep up that super-soldier metabolism. The nightly rants have gotten worse over the last several days that Bucky’s been back, and he wonders if Steve’s been like this since after he fell from the train. He knows that Steve would have tried to keep his problems from Bucky even if he had been aware of it, so Bucky can’t completely rule out that Steve might know, might remember those nightmares he’s been having.

Bucky chooses his moment carefully, makes sure that Steve is alone in their quarters before confronting him.

“What is it, Bucky?” Steve asks, not even looking up from the file he’d been reading, as Bucky entered the room.

“What’s gotten into you, punk?” Bucky inquires casually.

“Gabe and Peggy found something in the archives that they want me to veri-”

“Steve…whose Natasha? And Sam? And…did we even know a Thor back home, because I don’t remember meeting anyone like that in our neighborhood” Bucky said leading in to his subject.

Steve’s eyes snapped up, breaking his concentration. He was now completely focused on Bucky, with a wary expression on his face.

“I don’t-where did you hear-” Steve’s answer was stilted and Buck knew he’d struck a nerve.

_I hate doing this to you, Stevie, but you need to tell me what’s wrong so we can fix it._

“For the past few nights you’ve been talking in your sleep” Bucky explained. “I tried to wake you up, but you kept on chattering to yourself. You’ve got me really worrying about you, punk.”

“It isn’t something that I can’t handle” Steve said evasively. “You’re still recovering and I don’t want you worry about me, when I’m fine.”

“You’ve gotten thinner and even though I can’t seem to wake you up when the dream’s a bad one, you look like you aren’t getting enough sleep at night” Bucky continued, walking over to the table and leaning in to put a hand on Steve’s shoulder.

“Please tell me what this is.”

“I can move to another room so I won’t bother-”

“I never pegged you for a coward, Rogers.”

Steve’s blue eyes looked stricken as he stared at back.

“You wouldn’t, couldn’t, believe me if I told you” Steve warned.

“The hell I wouldn’t” Bucky said firmly. “You just saved my ass, again, after Zola tried to cut me up for a second time and fuck knows what else. The only thing that kept me going after you got me out the first time was having you right there with me. That hasn’t changed one bit since the last time you hauled me out. I want you to stick around, so let me help you like I used to. You know I’ve always got your back, Steve.”

“What makes you think you don’t still?” Steve said, tone never wavering an inch.

“Then let me help you with this, seems like its important enough” Bucky replied. “You don’t gotta do everything yourself. I told you I was with you to the end of the line and I meant it.”

Steve looked away with a sheepish expression on his face.

“Me too, Bucky” he answered, lip curling upward slightly. “Just when I tell you what I have to say, try to remember all of the near impossible things that we’ve seen over the past couple of years, okay? Don’t think I’ve flipped my lid or anything.”

“No more’n anyone else we’ve spent time with” Bucky grinned at him.

“Jerk. What if I told you that blue stone Schmidt had in his possession wasn’t the only one out there?” Steve asked, testing the waters.

“I’d say it was definitely possible, since Hydra managed to get one, stands to reason there might be more somewhere” Bucky answered honestly. His time as a prisoner in the labs and all those months fighting super-weaponry had radically changed his perspective about this type of thing.

“Good, now hold on to that thought. Here’s what happened the way I remember it, though I missed some things, because I wasn’t actually there to see them happen…”

 

* * *

 

“You’re right, I can’t believe you-”

Steve flinched.

“I knew that-” Bucky held up a hand cutting him off.

“Let me finish punk, I meant I can’t believe you would do something so goddamn reckless like sell your fucking soul, just to bring me back” Bucky groused in a quelling tone. “Christ Steve! What the hell would I tell your Ma, when I finally get up there, huh?”

“It’d already killed me, Buck. I wanted you to live since I was already a goner” Steve admitted, meeting Bucky’s eyes directly. “You were the only thing I had left. I walked around like a damn ghost after they pulled me out of the ice and it wasn’t until I saw you, even brainwashed, that I actually felt alive again.”

Bucky was shaking now, whether from anger or some other emotion, Steve didn’t know.

“You’ve gotta believe me, Bucky. It was the only thing I could still do at that point.”

Bucky scowled at him, or attempted to, and let out a sigh.

“Dunno why you think I wouldn’t believe ya. Not about your decision bein’ the only one, but everything else you said” he answered. “I thought maybe it was Carter being paranoid ‘bout Zola, but now it makes sense why you knew exactly where to find me. You _knew_ that he would have some way to get at me, ‘cause he told you so himself.”

“That’s because he thought Natasha and I were already dead” Steve pointed out.

“And the reason you look like you’re getting sick is because your time’s almost up?” Bucky asked warily.

“That’s right.”

“There a way to get out of it?” Bucky pressed him in desperate hope.

“It-I didn’t really understand it” Steve said honestly. “Back in Zola's lab the voice told me that I needed to breathe for you, which I did until the medics got there, because your heart stopped.”

He turned to stare at an obscure corner of the room, trying to wrack his brain and remember what the voice had told him. It took some effort, but he finally remembered what the voice had said amidst the burning haze.

“The voice-the stone told me that I needed to be given equal breath to be of equal value to what I’d given” Steve replied. “I still haven’t been able to figure out what it means. Then for a while I forgot about it, because I needed to see most important part of it through first.”

“Did you try as soon as you got me out?” Bucky asked imploringly, noticing the way Steve wasn’t meeting his eyes. “The answer’s no, isn’t it? See this is why you shouldn’t have done it, Steve. This is your _soul_. At least if I died in the future, I wouldn’t be giving that up too.”

Steve looks at him with those baby blue eyes and tells him “I didn’t have a choice.”

“You damn well did” Bucky retorted. Thoughts whirring through his head as everything that Steve had said sank in. Then it hit him. Breath. Steve had _breathed_ for him. Did that mean he had to do the same thing for Steve or would sharing the same breath for a few minutes be enough?

 _Well, there’s an easy way to do that. I just hope Carter won’t shoot me in retaliation_ , Bucky thinks.

“C’mere, wanna try something.”

Steve looked startled at the request, but complied, probably in an effort to placate some of Bucky’s residual anger. Bucky on the other hand can feel the room start to heat up as Steve moves closer. He slowly and self-consciously puts a hand on the blonde’s shoulder and pulls him in further.

“Want to see if this’s what it meant” Bucky said as he stares into those bright blue eyes and then down at red, slightly cracked, waiting lips.

“And what’s that, Bucky?” Steve asked, though Bucky could feel a slight jump in his pulse.

“Just don’t punch me” Bucky tells him, as Steve stares back with a bemused expression. “M’paying you back for saving my dumb ass yet again is all.”

Bucky hesitates for a moment more before curling his right arm around the back of Steve’s neck and learning forward to press their lips together, softly, slowly, because he doesn’t want to hurt Steve. Wants him to at least enjoy this so it isn’t nearly as awkward an experience between friends. He’s surprised when Steve is the one to press them closer together and start biting on Bucky’s lower lip. It doesn’t take long after that for the kiss to devolve into something a bit more heated, but it isn’t until Bucky manages to get the blonde’s mouth open and slide his tongue in to caress Steve’s that something breaks. Blue light suddenly, blindingly, encompasses every part of Steve.

Blue sparks of light literally flash around the frame of Steve’s body and then dissipate into the air.

“Didn’t think you had it in you, Rogers” Bucky commented lightly, his tone colored by a smirk that threatened to spread over his face.

“I told you, I joined the army. Changes a man wouldn’t you know it” Steve stares back with an amused smile, reaching down to catch Bucky’s hand in his. “You were right, Buck. It worked. I’ve had this feeling like something was pulling me in opposite directions for the last few days and it’s gone now.”

“It was just a hunch” Bucky admitted, eyes flaring brightly as his hand tightened its grip on Steve’s, “and one that I wouldn’t mind exploring a little more if you’re interested.”

Steve’s smile grows to near blindingly bright.

“Yeah Buck, been waitin’ a long time to do that, but I never thought you’d be interested seeing as how you always had all those dames to keep you company.”

“Oh and what about Carter and what’s her name, Private Lorraine?” Bucky countered, sounding as though he was surprised Steve would even agree to such a thing.

“Wasn’t what I thought it was. I like Peggy, but it turns out that even she knew that my heart was elsewhere. Private Loraine was…something that caught me by surprise and I should’ve acted better than I did in that situation. I just wasn’t expecting it” Steve explained, feeling guilty. “Peggy tried to tell me off and I may’ve asked her about Howard again.”

Bucky sighed and shook his head.

“They’re not together, Steve. Trust me. You need to let that go before she loses it and shoots you for real this time.”

 

* * *

 

Eventually Howard has to remove Bucky’s arm to study it and replace it with something more light weight and manageable, as it’d already started to affect Bucky’s shoulder joints and collarbone. He tries to make the surgery as quick and painless as possible, but it does require Bucky to make do after his recovery, without having a left arm for several weeks until Howard can make a prototype to his liking.

After a full scale of medical tests and debriefings by several members of the military and intelligence community, Bucky was place on permanent medical leave. The only reason he hadn’t been discharged and shipped home was Howard’s insistence on making Bucky another working prosthetic that wouldn’t wear down his bones or pull half his body out of joint when he used it.

“We’re lucky Stark’s such a fanatic about these things” Bucky commented staring idly at the space where his arm should be. “Otherwise I’d be stuck with the damn Hydra tech wearing me down to m’bones.”

Steve made a noise in agreement, but continued to focus on the sketchpad in front of him.

“Did Phillips say if they’re sending you to the pacific?” Bucky continued. “You know you can go where the fighting is if you want. You don’t hafta just stay here ‘n look after me.”

The pad and pencils dropped to the floor. Steve swore, started shaking and despite the watery edge his eyes his eyes had, there was steel there too.

“Steve?” Bucky moved over to sit beside him worriedly. “What-”

The shivering subsided slightly as he put a hand on Steve’s shoulder.

“When I woke up, I made sure to catch up with everything that’d happened before they found me in the ice, by-by any means that I could” Steve explained, turning to look at Bucky with a devastated expression on his face. “I forgot about it. How could I, after all that’s happened? I feel like I don’t have the right to-”

“Steve Rogers, use your words and tell me _exactly_ what you mean” Bucky urged. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what we’re up against this time.”

Steve’s face was grim.

“It’ll be over before we get there, Buck. There’re folks that have already decided what they’re going to do” he said. “It’s hard because I want to be there, I want to stop us from doing something that I don’t’ agree with. Bucky, they drop bombs on whole cities, ones that don’t discriminate between civilians or soldiers. Even if they are bullies, I don’t want them to die like that.”

“How big are we talking?”

“They destroy two of the biggest cities in Japan” Steve answered grimly.

“Damn. Something that powerful has gotta be locked up tight. We don’t have a shot of getting those things, do we?”

“Not a shot in hell” Steve agreed. “What was worse is that I realized later on that while I hated what they’d done, they’d done it in place of a full scale invasion. One that would have cost more lives on both sides and in the end more Japanese civilians would have died as a result.”

“Hydra?” Bucky wanted to know, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“No, it’s our tech” Steve admitted. “Something that Stark helped create with the help of a whole other group of scientists. They did it-do it to save American lives and for a long time I didn’t believe them. Couldn’t believe they’d sacrifice the lives of innocent people in another country who weren’t soldiers, weren’t even the ones shooting at us.”

“We haven’t exactly been pulling our shots over here either, Steve” Bucky pointed out. “War’s a dirty business that tends to cause people to turn a blind eye to things they normally wouldn’t, both ‘cause they’re scared to die and they don’t want to lose what they have.”

Steve balled his fists so hard his palms were starting to bleed.

“I wish I could help you forget some of the bad stuff, Stevie. You shouldn’t have to deal with the weight of what other people did after you were already in the fucking ice.”

Steve shook his head.

“S’part of the price I think” he mused. “I got you back and everything, but what I learned in the future…I have to live through seeing some of it actually happen now, the good and the bad, even when I know that I can’t stop everything from happening.”

“Not all of it?” Bucky voiced his thoughts aloud. “You’ve got a plan then.”

Steve’s smile was strained.

“Hydra’s goal was to create a world so chaotic, that people would willing give up their freedom for protection from one another” he stated, “and the way I figure it, I can sure as hell make it more difficult for what’s left of them or any other organization to ever have the chance to do that.”

“So when do we start, pal? Cause ain’t it gonna be just you” Bucky replied sternly. “You know I’m with you on this, til the end of the line.”

Steve’s smile smoothed out and began to look more genuine.

“Me too, Buck. Til the end of the line.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic goes off the logic that the stone in Loki’s staff was the Mind gem. I expanded the stone’s ability to give or expand on an individual’s psychic powers, to allow it the ability to send someone back to another point in their own consciousness be it backward or forward in time. While the individual in question still retains whatever past, present, and future memories they have, effectively merging their past and present selves into that future self who has all of the collective memories at their disposal.
> 
> Needless to say the Mind gem actually expected Steve to fail and it was taking a gamble on this, because it wanted to gain possession of his soul. It could only do that, at least in this AU., by making a deal with him and giving him what he wanted most.
> 
> Mind you, the gem had to give him an out, but it was one that the gem knew Steve probably wouldn’t take. He'd never force Bucky to do anything remotely like that...ever. He's too incredibly noble.


End file.
